Southeastern/Continental Championship Wrestling

[goc]

We're back and it's still February which means Championship Month so we'll see Condrey & Rose defend the Southeastern Tag Titles against Norvel Austin & Paul Orndorff. Stan Lane will also make his TV debut against my fantasy Southwest superstar Roy Lee Welch, Mr. Saito will take on Robert Gibson and Ken Lucas will also be in action. Les talks about the attacks by Condrey & Rose over the past few weeks on guys like Bob Armstrong & Jerry Stubbs are being "reviewed" by Don Curtis to see what action is going to be taken. He sure is doing a lot of deliberating.

They take us down to the ring for the first match which is Stan Lane against Roy Lee Welch. 1983 fantasy Southwest allies collide! Les puts Stan Lane over hard on commentary talking up the titles he's had an how he'll be a tough challenger for Brad Armstrong's US. Junior Title. Welch controls the match until Stan Lane catches him with a Russian Legsweep and then does a weird JYD style crawling headbutt into Welch's back as Welch starts to get up. Lane wins by kicking out of a Welch sunset flip and then pinning Welch with a handful of tights. Felt like they could have debuted Lane with a stronger win against one of their real scrub jobbers like Charles Oden but I'm not sure how hard they really end up pushing Lane here either.

After that match we go to the desk with Les & Charlie talking to Bob & Brad Armstrong and they show a video of Brad Armstrong facing Chick Donovan at the arena in a U.S. Jr. Title match. They start the clip with Brad moving out of the way of a top rope splash from Donovan and then after another minute or so of action, Brad ducks a clothesline and hits a crossbody on Donovan to win the match. Seems like they're definitely trying to build up Brad by giving him some new competition to beat in the Jr. division. Now they go to a clip of Bob Armstrong taking on Ron Bass in the arena which pretty much immediately has Mr. Saito run in. Bob makes it out of the ring away from Saito & Bass and gets a chair and clears the ring. Bob complains about Saito costing him his chance at the Southeastern title and a match with Harley Race.

Coming back from commercial we get the rundown for the Boutwell card which has Robert Fuller against Jimmy Golden, Ken Lucas taking on Ron Bass for the Southeastern title (although the graphic says Lucas vs. Golden, get it together!) a Six Man Southern Street Fight match with Norvel Austin, Paul Orndorff & Bob Armstrong against Randy Rose, Dennis Condrey & Mr. Saito, Brad Armstrong defending the U.S. Jr. Title against Stan Lane and Robert Gibson vs. Oki Shikina. I'd definitely want to see the Fuller/Golden match and the Southern Street Fight 6 man. After the rundown we get a video promo from Stan Lane with Les Thatcher talking to Brad Armstrong afterwards. Stan doesn't even sound like himself in this promo, I'd guess he was trying to go for a more "dangerous" sounding voice or something. It's tough being a young guy learning your way of cutting promos in this territory as both of these guys are just miles away from the Fullers, Jimmy Golden and Bob Armstrong in that department. Then we get ANOTHER promo from Stan Lane at the desk with Charlie Platt and I can't get past over just how weird he sounds. I mean he sounds natural with the "fake" voice but he doesn't sound like the Stan Lane I know.

We go from that to a taped split screen promo between Orndorff & Norvel Austin standing with Les Thatcher and Charlie Platt talking to Rose & Condrey and then right down to the ring for Condrey & Rose defending the titles against Orndorff & Austin. I'm disappointed at not getting any results of the Andre 6 man. This is a pretty good match and then we get a surprising finish as some partner miscommunication leads to Paul Orndorff & Norvel Austin beating Condrey & Rose for the tag team titles. It's 1981, a title change on TV ain't something you would expect. Condrey & Rose are pissed off after the match and attack the new champions during their celebration. They knock Orndorff out of the ring and then Rose gets a chair and they wind up hitting a Spike Piledriver on the chair on Norvel Austin. That's about as deadly as pulling out a gun and shooting him as far as 80s rasslin goes. Orndorff comes back into the ring and they start double teaming him when Jerry Stubbs runs in with his street clothes on and helps Orndorff clear the ring.

After a commercial break we come back to Bob Armstrong, Jerry Stubbs & Paul Orndorff at the desk with Les Thatcher. Les says that Norvel has been injured and Jerry Stubbs is going to fill in for Norvel Austin in the 6 man street fight. Orndorff talks about what he's going to wear to the street fight which includes cowboy boots with spurs on them and a belt with a giant buckle that he's gonna "wear out their fannies with" and then the man Bob Armstrong, wearing his Titan overalls talks about how he's going to wear his overalls with his pockets full of anything he wants. We get a promo from Condrey, Rose & Saito in response that I don't care for because they're changed into their street clothes which makes it painfully obvious that they taped the promo talking about Jerry Stubbs in the match before the TV match where Norvel got injured. I do love street fight hype where they spend most of it talking about what they're going to wear to the ring though.

After the fashion segment we get Mr. Saito vs. Robert Gibson. Saito is the man and I love how he just muscles out of a side headlock by picking Gibson up and slamming him. Gibson gets worked over for a bit but starts a comeback with a dropkick that catches Saito right in the face but Saito dodges the second one and grabs Gibson up into a Saito Suplex and then pins him to win a quick match.

We come back from commercial to our 2nd fashion segment with Condrey, Rose & Saito talking about the cowboy boots and belts they're gonna be wearing for the street fight and then Bob Armstrong, Jerry Stubbs & Paul Orndorff's response. Bullet Bob might be the only guy who can sell overalls as dangerous street fight attire.

Our last match is TV time remaining with the fake Japanese real Mexican Oki Shikina taking on Ken Lucas. Shikina attacks at the bell and Lucas fights him off then whips him into the ropes and catches Shikina in a Sleeper. Super short match with Lucas putting Shikina to sleep. After that match we get Jimmy Golden out at the desk with Charlie and Les looking quite slick in his suit and they show footage of a match between Jimmy Golden and Ken Lucas from the arena. Golden says that Lucas' sleeper is a chokehold not a sleeper hold and it should be banned. Lucas is busted open in the match and the footage starts pretty much at Ken Lucas' comeback and he shows a lot of fire. Golden is great talking trash through this mentioning Ron Slinker sticking his nose in Golden's business and how he was gonna cut it off. Bass comes out and hands something to Golden but that doesn't help him much as he doesn't get a chance to use it as Lucas stays all over him. Bass ends up getting in the ring to help but Lucas starts kicking his ass too (remember this is a Light's Out match and thus no DQ) finally Lucas falls victim to the numbers game and Golden gets ready to hit Lucas with whatever he's got while Ron Bass holds him from behind but now we see the Ron Slinker interference as he comes out and holds Golden's arm as he gets ready for the punch and then blasts Golden with a punch of his own which causes whatever object Jimmy had to go flying in the air. Then we cut back to the studio as Ron Slinker has come out and started trashing Jimmy Golden, calling him a backstabber and a liar and challenges Golden to meet him in the ring. Golden takes off his jacket and heads to the ring when, predictably, Ron Bass jumps Slinker from behind and the two of them start beating on Slinker and set him up for a double suplex but Lucas runs out and saves Slinker and helps him clear the ring.

We come back from a commercial to the updated card rundown that changes the Southern Street Fight to reflect that Norvel Austin has been replaced by Jerry Stubbs and also reminds me we didn't get a Robert Fuller promo on Jimmy Golden which upsets me. Then we've another promo from Jimmy Golden in his suit and Ron Bass as Golden runs down Robert Fuller and then Ron Bass talks about how he's going to take back the Southeastern Title from Ken Lucas. Bob Armstrong essentially cuts a promo for Robert Fuller talking about family feuds are always the most bitter rivalries and he knows what Robert is gonna do to Jimmy Golden. After that we're back to Les and Charlie talking about the day's events and also let us know that Don Curtis had a meeting that day to review the actions of Randy Rose and Dennis Condrey and how the attack on Norvel Austin would surely lead to some kind of punishment being levied against them. Les speculates about the tag team titles as Norvel Austin is injured and possibly won't be able to defend the titles. Charlie tells us that Championship Month will continue next week with the Southeastern title on the line and welcomes us to join him next week and that's all for this show.

 

 

[grapplin' apple]

On Thanksgiving, I am super thankful that I discovered this board within the last two years and especially for this thread. I love it and keep up the good work. This is one of my favorite territories. I also wonder how you obtained this footage since it's ridiculously hard to find. I've been looking for some of it since '96 and have only stumbled across a handful of discs and videotapes.

 

Anyway, thanks for this and please keep posting.

[goc]

Going through my footage and listings it looks like the next show I have is about 2 and a half months after the one I just recapped with the date I have on it being 5/16/81. So we won't get to find out what Don Curtis decided to do to Condrey & Rose after his extremely long deliberations and we'll miss how The Tennessee Stud Ron Fuller ended up making his triumphant return to the area because on the listings he's already back in May. That makes me sad because I really like the Golden/Fuller feud and I'm sure The Stud coming back was a hot angle.

[goc]

So yea we're jumping ahead a few months to 5/16/81 and we start the show with Charlie Platt at the desk talking to the new Southeastern Tag Team Champions Bob and Brad Armstrong who will be defending the titles on TV. We'll also see Stan Lane vs. Jerry Stubbs and Ron Fuller vs. Jimmy Golden on TV and Charlie then talks about Ray Candy coming in to the area. I'm intrigued at seeing Ray Candy show up.

Our first match of the day is MY MAN Roy Lee Welch taking on Ron Bass. Poor Roy. As an aside, I asked Rip Rogers on twitter if he knew why Roy was really only wrestling on TV around this time and not active on the arena cards and he said Roy did a lot of other stuff as the part owner including concessions and box office, so I suppose him getting more active in the Continental days was just a sign that the talent pool was a lot thinner. Still, Roy is really quite good for a guy who pretty much has no rep at all. Jimmy Golden comes out and calls the match with Charlie Platt and puts over Ron Bass' heart punch. Golden says all the Welchs, Fullers and Hatfields are good rasslers but have evil minds. And they aren't as good as the Goldens. Welch is one of the weird "jobbers" that gets a ton of offense and actually kind of controls the match but gets cheated at the finish. Like, I've never seen him win on these early Southeastern shows but he usually gets more of the match than the guy who beats him. Golden is great antagonizing Roy from the desk and getting on him about using punches. Roy controls a headlock for a lot of this until finally Bass is able to suplex his way out of it. Welch gets a short comeback but then misses a splash into the corner and lands nasty taking the brunt of the blow right on his throat and then Bass hits the Heart Punch on him to finish him off. I liked this match a lot by itself and the added bonus of the Jimmy Golden trash talking puts this over the top as maybe the best Southeastern studio match I've seen so far, just edging out the Saito/Charlie Cook match I uploaded to youtube.

After the match we get Randy Rose & Dennis Condrey out to the desk to talk about losing the titles and they show some footage of the match with the Armstrongs from the arena. Dennis says the Armstrongs aren't the champions they're just carrying the belts around for he and Rose. Haha Condrey says they are introducing Bob Armstrong to P A N E pain. Apparently Bob Armstrong has a leg injury and they are working hard on it. Rose says the referee is ignoring all the 15 cries from Bob Armstrong that he wants to give up so they're just going to tear his leg right off. Condrey & Rose demand they cut the tape off just as Bob is about to make the tag. Nothing like a good sore loser heel promo.

We come back from commercials to the card rundown which includes Ron Fuller vs. Ron Bass in a Bullrope match, The Armstrongs defending the tag titles against Condrey & Rose, Ken Lucas defending the Southeastern Title against Mr. Saito, Robert Fuller vs. Jimmy Golden, Stan Lane defending the U.S. Jr. Title against Mr. Olympia, and Dennis Condrey against Brad Armstrong in a singles match. Odd to throw that Condrey & Brad match in there when they're already in the tag title match against each other. After that we get another promo from Condrey & Rose talking about how they're gonna get their belts back in Boutwell and the Armstrongs rebuttal. Bob says they stretched his leg so much he's 2 inches taller on the left side. I say this every time but it's still true, Bob is such a good promo.

After another commercial we get Charlie Platt talking to Ken Lucas who has both the Southeastern and Alabama titles. Before Charlie talks to Lucas we get a video promo from Mr. Saito who says he has the #1 sleeper hold and Ken Lucas is a not so good American wrestler with a not so good sleeper. Lucas is doing nothing for me as a promo so far, sorry to say. Then we've got Stan Lane at the desk with his U.S. Jr Title talking to Charlie Platt about how he beat Jerry Stubbs for weeks and weeks and he's done getting any rematches for that belt. Stan stills sounds weird to me. They show some video of Stan taking on Stubbs from the arena and Lane says Stubbs is so down from all his loses that his wife left him and he's so humiliated he's had to leave the area. Lane complains about a scientific wrestler like himself having to be hit with punches from Jerry Stubbs. We get a really really shitty ref bump as Lane hits Stubbs with a patented Stan Lane karate kick and Stubbs barely bumps into the referee who takes an NBA level flop. Lane gets ready to try and throw Stubbs over the top rope but Stubbs reverses it and tosses Lane over and the ref saw it and disqualified him. Lane starts really laying it on thick now talking about how he complained about wanting better competition so they found him Mr. Olympia who he claims was the Bronze medalist in the 1968 Olympics and he's excited to face a former Olympic champion. This must be the very first time Stubbs put on the Mr. Olympia mask, rather historic footage in my opinion.

Stan gets in the ring and Olympia comes out and Stan pretty much immediately figures out who he is and so does the crowd and Stan hops right back out of the ring and complains to Charlie Platt about how he knows it's Jerry Stubbs. Olympia grabs him and tosses him into the ring and the match is underway and we get a great false finish as Olympia slides under Stan Lane off a back body drop attempt and sunset flips him but only for a 2 count. Interesting to see that even on the very first apperance of Mr. Olympia, everyone already knew he was Jerry Stubbs. I always figured it was at least a secret at SOME point but apparently not. Lane is shouting complaints the whole way through this. Olympia has an arm bar on and there's a whole lot of "break it Jerry" comments from the crowd. And some people have the audacity to say 80s rasslin fans were stupid. I thought this was kind of going to be a quick "Olympia upsets Stan Lane" match but they're getting a lot more time than I expected. And right after I type that, Lane throws Olympia over the top rope and gets disqualified. Lane goes out after him and tries to take off his mask but Olympia fights back and ends up running him off. I will say that Mr. Olympia looks tougher than Jerry Stubbs even if I do know who it is. Just something about covering up the baldness that makes him more of a bad ass. Same deal with Tennessee Stud looking way more menacing than Ron Fuller.

We come back from commercial to a Personality Profile with the Fuller brothers. Ron Fuller has wound up with Ron Bass' bullrope and he wants to show the footage of how he got it. They show some tape of an arena match that looks like a tag match between The Fullers and Golden/Bass. Ron Fuller pins Golden at the same time that Bass pins Robert Fuller and the referee seems to count both falls at the same time. So then we get Ron vs. Ron fighting at ringside and Bass runs off to the locker room. Ok so apparently this is a Texas Death match as Fuller is talking about how the referee is counting for the 30 second rest period. Ron Fuller gets in the ring and starts cheering on Robert Fuller to get up as the referee is making the 10 count on both Robert and Jimmy Golden. And of course, Ron Bass comes back out with his bullrope and attacks The Stud from behind Ron Fuller from behind. Golden holds Robert for Bass to hit him with the cowbell but Robert ducks and instead Golden eats the bell. Ron Fuller then gets the bullrope from him and Golden is counted out and loses the match. Ron Fuller tells us that Ron Bass has challenged him to a Bullrope match to try and get it back and then we cut to a video promo from Jimmy Golden and Ron Bass. Golden puts out a $5000 bounty on Robert Fuller and dangerously says you don't even have to be a rassler to collect it, it can be a fan as long as they put Robert Fuller in the hospital. Ron Bass complains about Fuller stealing his bullrope and says he's gonna crush Ron Fuller's head with the cowbell in their bullrope match. Oddly enough, I didn't know Jimmy did this bounty gimmick and I had him offering the same exact same amount of money to Bill Ash to injure Roy Lee Welch in my 1983 fantasy Southwest. Robert says no one is gonna collect that money and nobody is going to put him out of wrestling, he'll leave when he wants to. Good stuff here.

After the Personality Profile we head to the ring with Mr. Saito in the ring with Bob Owens who I suspect is going to get stomped into the ground here. Platt puts over the importance of being a champion by saying the champions get a bigger portion of the gates. Ken Lucas joins in for commentary and still isn't doing a whole lot for me as a talker. Saito does some cool takedowns in this match and I like Saito on the mat as he really just ties Owens up. It's Saito though so then we get some chops to the throat leading to the Japanese Sleeper and Owens is done very quickly. Saito is the man, another fantasy Southwest superstar. Actually a fair amount of my fantasy roster is on this show with Ken Lucas, Stan Lane, Mr. Saito and Roy Lee Welch. Ken Lucas gets into the ring to wake Owens back up as Charlie talks about the danger of Mr. Saito leaving the ring without doing so. I've never really cared for that whole "wake your opponent up after the sleeper" gimmick. Then Lucas comes back to the desk and they start showing a clip of Saito and Ken Lucas from the arena and man I wish I could see that in full. Saito is in control but Lucas makes a slowburn comeback and then gets his sleeper in on Mr. Saito. Condrey & Rose run out and Lucas lets go of the sleeper to drop Condrey with a punch and then puts the sleeper on Rose. Jerry Stubbs runs out to help and starts fighting with Condrey at ringside and Saito hits Lucas to break up the sleeper on Rose but gets distracted by Stubbs at ringside and gets rolled up by Ken Lucas and pinned. Kind of a goofy finish as there's no good reason for there not to have been a DQ. But anyway, that's how Ken Lucas won the Alabama title. Lucas says the belts he's got aren't just his he shares them with all the people who have supported him. I will say that Lucas speaks well and is a good promo in that sense it's just that he's so plain especially compared to the top babyfaces promos in the area like Bob Armstrong and Ron Fuller.

We come back from commercial with Charlie Platt running down the Boutwell card again as he sits at the desk with Stan Lane and Mr. Saito and then throws to a video promo from Mr. Olympia and Ken Lucas talking about their title matches in Birmingham. Well, there really is no hiding that Olympia is Jerry Stubbs once he starts talking. Damn I love Saito promos. "I'm more strong sleeper hold man! American sleeper hold not too good, Japanese one more strong, more power" Poor Stan Lane having to follow that. He must know too because he keeps it real short and sweet.

Now we go to our TV main event with The Tennessee Stud Ron Fuller taking on Jimmy Golden. I expect a ring full of people by the end of this. Charlie says this could be a "main event anywhere in the country" and inspires me to come up with territory wrestling bingo. And yea it doesn't take long before Ron Bass is out and attacks Ron Fuller with the bullrope and Robert Fuller comes out too. Bass busts open Ron Fuller while Jimmy Golden and Robert Fuller brawl on the floor and then Bass gets in the ring and hooks the bullrope around Robert's neck and hangs him over the ropes. Always thought that was a great visual.

After a commercial we get fired up bloody promo from Ron Fuller and Robert Fuller has an equally fired up promo without the blood. And that's all for this episode.

 

 

[Smack2k]

Dude,

 

So glad you got back to doing this...I never get a chance to watch all this stuff as it sits in a spindle on my shelf...thanks a ton for doing this and keep it up as its incredible stuff.

[The Following Contest]

This is Knoxville, correct? I often wondered about their loop. What towns were they hitting? I know Tennessee borders Alabama, but these guys weren't going as far as Dothan were they?

 

Was the promotion big enough, geographically, to run the same matches around the horn, or did each spot show get a different card?

[goc]

This is Knoxville, correct? I often wondered about their loop. What towns were they hitting? I know Tennessee borders Alabama, but these guys weren't going as far as Dothan were they?

 

Was the promotion big enough, geographically, to run the same matches around the horn, or did each spot show get a different card?

This isn't Knoxville. The TV is taped at Dothan and this feed is the Birmingham feed so it hypes the matches for Monday night at the Boutwell Auditorium. At one point Ron Fuller was running two different areas and had a "Northern and Southern" division (although not ever really acknowledged on the air) where they would run Knoxville and some other towns in one loop and the Alabama (and Pensacola, FL) towns like Birmingham, Dothan, Montgomery, etc were the Southern division. They were treated as totally separate territories although they had the same owner and a lot of the talent cycled through both areas. I'm almost positive they ran the same cards in all the towns especially since everyone in the promotion was usually involved in their own feud so you couldn't shuffle the card much and not have it be really different from what was being built up on TV.

 

After Garvin/Roop/Orton left the Knoxville part of Southeastern in 1979 they started their own promotion called All-Star Wrestling (that eventually kind of merged into ICW) and the promotional war pretty much killed off Knoxville and so Ron Fuller sold it off and just retreated back to the Alabama portion. It bounced around different owners like Jim Barnett (as sort of a sattellite promotion of Georgia Championship) and then Flair & Blackjack Mulligan bought it from him and then it just was dead for a few years until the Alabama end started going way down and Ron Fuller went back and started running in Knoxville again and then when David Woods bought Continental from him, Fuller kept the Knoxville end and started up a short lived territory called USA Championship before also selling that territory to David Woods also.

[goc]

I always intended to bring this back but that seems unlikely now. The external hard drive I had all my SE/Continental footage on got destroyed, along with most of my things, last week when a tree fell on my house. Maybe someday I will be able to replace it all and bring this thread back.

[khawk20]

Wow, shitty break man.

 

You know I have discs of a ton of it from our trades so if you ever want to re-aquire some of it when you get everything back to normal, let me know.

[Flyin' Brian]

Damn that sucks. If you have a list of stuff you need help replacing I'd be willing to help out too best I can.

[goc]

Included in the small amount of my collection that didn't get destroyed is 1989 Continental and I watched the first 3 episodes of it last night. No full write-ups or anything but there is some good stuff going on, some bad stuff going on and some "what the fuck is this!?" stuff going on.

 

In the good category we have Brad Armstrong back in the territory and he's as good here as I've ever seen him. He's involved in a feud with Tom Prichard over the Continental Title. From the best that I can tell Tom was a babyface champ when Brad came in but Tom turned on him to start a heel run and he's doing this gimmick where he claims to have a list of names with numbers beside them (that he never actually shows) and spins a wheel to see who his opponent will be that week and then claims that the number belongs to some jobber like Lee Peak. Everything involving Brad & Dr. Tom is really good, Brad Armstrong is cutting GOOD promos(!) and Tom is doing a great job playing up the cowardly champ who doesn't want to to defend his belt. My favorite part of this feud so far is a Dr. Tom vs. The Bullet main event on TV that is SUPER short as Dr. Tom pulls the referee into The Bullet after Bullet catches him in a sleeper, then while Bullet is down he takes the mask off of him to reveal: Brad Armstrong! Between the not so great video quality and Brad doing such a fantastic job of doing Bullet's mannerisms (including The Bullet's usual dance on the ring aprong) I had no idea it was not Bob Armstrong under the mask.

 

In the bad category we have one of the weirdest angles I've ever seen as "Super" Dave Baxter (I don't know either) is managed by Alan Martin and after winning a squash match where jobber JD Wolfe looks like the FAR better wrestler (Super Dave's timing was fucking terrible) he gets turned on Alan Martin? I put the question mark there because I have no idea what the fuck actually happened in this segment as Alan Martin hits Baxter in the back of the head with his briefcase when he raises his hand in celebration after the match and I can't tell if it was supposed to be played up as an accident or on purpose. Anyway, "Super Shitty" Dave then attacks Alan Martin which brings out 2 of Martin's other guys, Detroit Demolition and Blade Warrior, to the ring where they beat down Dave Baxter. I don't even know if this leads anywhere because Dave Baxter was not on the next episode and it wasn't mentioned again.

 

Oh also in the bad category is the fact that Black Bart is in the territory. Not because I dislike Bart or anything but because he was like the harbinger of death to a territory around this time period.

 

In the "what the fuck is this!?" category we have Jerry Stubbs and the Dirty White Boy back together as a team (and holding the Continental tag titles) after they had a long feud in 87 (and maybe into 88, not sure) and for some reason that I do not understand Jerry Stubbs is wearing a toupee! Yes, the man who wrestled without hair in this territory for nearly a decade is now suddenly sporting a full head of hair. Your guess is as good as mine. In other weird happenings we've got Mike Jackson winning a match on TV against masked jobber The Count. Yes that's right Mike Jackson is winning matches on TV.

 

They also played some cool music videos one being of Jerry Lawler to Bob Seger's "Turn the Page" to hype him coming in as the World Champion and that's a pretty good song to use in a video for a traveling World Champion. Then there's a music video for Terry Gordy and I forget the song because I was too busy marking out about how the video looked like the god damn wildest thing I've ever seen in wrestling as it's Terry Gordy just HURLING chairs in a Japanese crowd and pretty much taking out a whole section at ringside as he just goes nuts while Riki Chosu stands in the ring watching him. I don't know what the story is behind that video but it's one of the all time "make the Japanese crowd run for it's life" moments I've ever seen.

 

I can't wait for the next episode of Exile on Badstreet that is going to get into this time period and if you've been following this thread and haven't listened to those podcasts yet you HAVE to listen to the last 3 episodes of the show (24-26) which you can find here: http://placetobenation.com/category/podcasts/exile-on-badstreet/

 

And because I fucking love when The Bullet shows up for a promo in his "civilian" masks here is a picture of one of those:

[goc]

Watched some more last night and things are just so different in 89 than any of the Southeastern or Continental I've watched before. Everything else I've seen from this territory has everyone on the roster specifically involved in their own feud/angle whatever and here it's not like that at all. It's kind of hard to even keep track of who is actually in Continental at this time period.

 

It seems like the best thing that was going on here (the feud between Dr. Tom & Brad Armstrong) is over now as neither Brad Armstrong or The Bullet were on the last two episodes that I watched. Willie B. Hert (Pez Whatley) was also involved in a feud with Black Bart on the first few episodes of 89 and he also seems to have disappeared which left Black Bart without an opponent so they just kind of randomly have Doug Furnas interrupt his promo and challenge him to a match. But that doesn't turn into a feud as on the next episode they seem to be putting Danny Davis & Doug Furnas together as a tag team. Detroit Demolition also seems to have faded away from the area but I'm not too torn up about that one.

 

The Alaskan Hunters had a squash match on each episode I watched and I have no idea who they are but they seem pretty good. I like their finisher of one of the Hunters holding up the opponent in a vertical suplex and the other Hunter hitting him with a shoulderblock off the top rope. They are hyping a match between The Alaskan Hunters & Doug Furnas & Danny Davis for the house shows on the last episode I saw. They kind of needed to throw Davis & Furnas together as a tag because they had Jerry Stubbs & Dirty White Boy, The Alaskan Hunters and Masahiro Chono & Mike Davis as their 3 pushed heel tag teams and the only real babyface team was Johnny & Davey Rich. Mike Davis looks weird with his hair dyed black.

 

They had Terry Gordy on the show saying he wanted to take on all comers and at the very end of his promo he gets confronted by Kokina Maximus (the future Yokozuna) and man I want to see them have a match. I have no idea what they are doing with Kokina though because he's had like 1 squash on the 5 episodes I've watched and this confrontation with Gordy but outside of that he's a total non-entity on the TV. I can't even remember if he was being advertised for some of the house shows.

 

Wendell Cooley made his return to Continental and there were some ladies in the audience in Mobile that were VERY happy about that news.

 

I also forgot to mention in my "WTF is this?" section on the last post that they had a jobber on one of these shows named "King Harley" and that seems to be a shot at Harley Race but I have no idea why. In another bit of "WTF?" news they are hyping Ron Fuller coming in to defend the USA Title after the USA promotion has been dead nearly 6 months now. I know that he DOES come in because I saw him cutting a promo wearing the Tennessee Stud mask when I was converting the discs before but unfortunately I think I'm missing the episode where he actually wrestles The Dirty White Boy. I honestly had no idea that Fuller ever came into the David Woods Continental.

[PeteF3]

The Alaskan Hunters couldn't be the State Patrol, could they? I've never seen them and only ask because that was the State Patrol's finish.

 

Edit: I was half-right. Dale Veasey/James Earl Wright/Wrestling Bear Icon was one of them. The other guy was a dude named Bob Brown who was not the Bulldog.

[goc]

State Patrol had a finish? I thought you had to win matches for that

 

I also forgot to mention that with The Bullet seemingly having disappeared they have turned The Dog (Moondog Spot) into a babyface. They have him coming out to the ring with the Continental Cat but the fans do not seem to be reaction to The Dog as a babyface AT ALL. He definitely isn't getting the Wendell Cooley high pitched screams.

[goc]

Another two episodes into the journey of 1989 Continental and I have more questions than answers. We get no follow up on the confrontation between Kokina & Terry Gordy unfortunately as the show opens up with a promo from Black Bart about his match with Terry Gordy on TV that day. You know what, this DAT GUM Black Bart is starting to grow on me with his DAT GUM promos. He and Terry Gordy have a short match that ends in a double countout and then we get promos from each of them hyping up a match in DAT GUM Chatanooga. I would have rather seen Gordy vs Yokozuna but Gordy vs Black Bart was a decent substitute. Honestly the highlight of these shows for me are the Black Bart promos now.

The Rich Cousins won the big Cage match that was being hyped up against Dirty White Boy and Jerry Stubbs so they're now the Continental Tag Champs and it seems like they're setting up a feud now between The Rich Cousins and The Japanese Connection of Mike Davis & Masahiro Chono. That should be pretty good considering the feud between The Party Boys and The RPMs was really good in USA and all they've done is switched out Tommy Lane for Chono.

Ron Fuller wrestles a squash match on one episode and then defends the USA Title on the second episode against Dirty White Boy. White Boy goes after Ron's bad knee that they've spent the last 2 weeks of TV time putting over as the weak point of The Tennessee Stud, talking about his 3 knee surgeries. The Stud makes a comeback at the end however and gets DWB in the Fuller Leglock but Stubbs runs down and attacks him which causes the match to end in a DQ. Unfortunately I'm missing the next 2 episode of TV but I'm fairly certain Ron ends up having his "career ended" by DWB attacking his knee.

In some WTF news they replay Alaskan Hunters squashes from previous episodes on both of these shows. We also get the appearance of two midgets as Butch Cassidy takes on, I shit you not, "The Mask Midget." No, not The Masked Midget. The Mask Midget. His graphic said this BOTH weeks. The first week the midgets wrestle in a singles match and on the 2nd episode they have a tag match where Butch Cassidy teams up with Doug Furnas and the Mask Midget teams up with some scrubs. Doug Furnas has the best dropkick I've ever seen in 1989. He looks like he could catch El Gigante in the face with it if he had to.

Tom Prichard is still the Continental Champion here but he seems to be just kind of floating along without a regular opponent since Brad Armstrong left. The only thing he's doing on TV is co-hosting the show with Charlie Platt which Austin Idol was doing until he seemingly disappeared.

Oh, and Pat Rose is here doing jobs pretty much every week and despite liking him in the past I'm getting really sick of seeing him. He spends the entire fucking match pulling up his trunks. Bruh you can pull them up to your nipples, hell pull them all the way up over your head, it's not going to hide the fact that your fat so just give it up.

[goc]

Bob Armstrong was robbed, definitely should have been #1 in the GWE poll.

 

 

[goc]

 

I was very disappointed to see this photo of Ron Fuller with a hairpiece from the Gulf Coast reunion. What happened to just wearing a cowboy hat or a Tennessee Stud mask to cover up baldness?

[sek69]

Been watching the 1981 episodes you've been uploading and it's been amazing so far. I always read about Southeastern/Continental in the magazines but never got to watch any of it until now.

 

Still amazed at Dennis Condrey. Like seriously, did he have some kind of charisma-ending injury at some point after leaving this area? I know spending most of your career next to Jim Cornette can overshadow a guy promo wise, but Jesus this is like a different person.

 

My prior experience with Bob Armstrong was when he would randomly pop up in JCP to team with Brad and generally be all "aw shucks I'm proud of my boy", so seeing him vow to dismember the people who injured his son here was shocking.

 

Also, and this may change the more I watch, I've noticed so far it seems like the owners/bookers of the territory don't seem to be pushing themselves over everyone else which is refreshing.

[goc]

Been watching the 1981 episodes you've been uploading and it's been amazing so far. I always read about Southeastern/Continental in the magazines but never got to watch any of it until now.

 

Still amazed at Dennis Condrey. Like seriously, did he have some kind of charisma-ending injury at some point after leaving this area? I know spending most of your career next to Jim Cornette can overshadow a guy promo wise, but Jesus this is like a different person.

 

My prior experience with Bob Armstrong was when he would randomly pop up in JCP to team with Brad and generally be all "aw shucks I'm proud of my boy", so seeing him vow to dismember the people who injured his son here was shocking.

 

Also, and this may change the more I watch, I've noticed so far it seems like the owners/bookers of the territory don't seem to be pushing themselves over everyone else which is refreshing.

The biggest takeaway I had from 1981 Southeastern is that everyone was kind of pushed at an equal level. Everyone would kind of float up and down the card and in and out of title feuds to where there wasn't a real sense of hierarchy of "these are the 3 top guys, these dudes are in the middle and then these guys are at the bottom" and it's pretty cool.

 

Bob might go from a feud for the Southeastern title, to one for the Alabama title, then go to working with Brad teaming up for the tag titles and then go off into a feud with Ron Bass that's the opening match at the arenas but he still feels as important as ever through all of it.

[Matt D]

I made it through the first January 1981 show. My big take aways were that Valiant's chewing tobacco addiction was gross, that I really wanted to see a Paul Orndorff promo, and that Ron Bass just randomly hanging out in the last tag of the night was weird (even if he didn't eat the fall). They definitely made me want to see the 8-man Texas Death Match.

 

Most remarkable was the Rose/Condrey vs Austin/Jackson tag, though. I love how they worked it with a bunch of hot tags but no sustained house afire comebacks until the very end. It turned the hot tags into hope spots which made the heels seem dominant, never giving up too much, while making the babyfaces look all the more worthwhile as opponents for them. Everyone came out looking better in the end, even more so than if Rose/Condrey just flat out squashed them.

[goc]

Southeastern had a lot of guys who only worked TV and never won but weren't really JOBBERS in the normal sense of the word. Guys like Roy Lee Welch, Mike Jackson & Ted Allen don't make it onto the arena cards but they are all regulars on TV having competitive matches that they never win.

 

Condrey & Rose are so good on TV that it makes me think if we had arena footage of them they could honestly be in the same conversation as The Midnight Express as best teams of the 80s or at least not very far behind.

 

As for the Ron Bass thing, Southeastern did a whole bunch of "established guy teams with a jobber" matches. I never have figured out why but it's something they did a lot.

[Memphis Mark]

The established talent teaming with a jobber was a common practice of Welch run promotions. This way a mid-card face got on TV and got his offense in against a top heel team . Then the jobber took the fall. That way the baby face looked like a million bucks , while protecting the top heels at the same time.

[goc]

They didn't just do it with the babyfaces though they would have heels team with jobbers too, like Ron Bass in the episode that Matt D mentioned and some I just put on youtube from 84 with Rip Rogers teaming with jobbers against The Rat Patrol.

[MikeF]

Bob Armstrong was robbed, definitely should have been #1 in the GWE poll.

 

 

I think I was the high vote on him!

[sek69]

I'm wondering if the footage they show from (I'm assuming) the auditorium in Birmingham has shown up anywhere in a fuller form?